Love and Strife

          never without

we carry our
yellow pages turning
flapping
fraying
while patience longs for
woven covers
story drenched
thread-bare vanishings
Time's sweet vigil

          we fear

like rivers undone by the sea
our tendrils of living
coalesce
separate
clash
re-invent

          hidden

deceits rise like genies
through bottle-necked suppressions
duplicity's mist layers hubris sans humility
while vacuous ether rising
gives nothing to something

          tenacious we

with acrobatic balance
our experience straddles

 the perfect woven rainbow fabric stretched taut
shrouding Dread's weeping droplets

          but regret we will

our childhood
adolescence one
adolescence two
adolescence three
clumsily leaping to
octogenarian futures

          living

left frayed
with annoying decay
split fingernails
wispy strands atop the pate
stubble holding yesterday's pureed remnants

          next?

to where the shreds of
threadbare tenacity settle
or do they ever settle?

Might tattered fringes remain alive
forever our cherished Love and Strife of Empedocles?